


Stiff Breeze

by gutterandthestars



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 13:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gutterandthestars/pseuds/gutterandthestars
Summary: “You were jealous of weather, McKay.”





	Stiff Breeze

 

P2X-399 is deserted, temperate, and windy and John’s team have had what passes for a restful afternoon. McKay is off fiddling with some sort of abandoned research station set into a rocky outcrop on the brow of a hill with Ronon standing watch; Teyla and John are resting on boulders set amidst the grass some way below, watching them both in turn.Their day has so far been undramatic.There are clouds gathering on the horizon, but the team will be long gone and home slurping pudding at the other end of the galaxy before those clouds result in serious weather and for now it’s sunny and the breeze is firm and cool.

John enjoys the wind like it’s his own secret.He’s touch starved, he knows that - and tells himself he doesn’t care enough to do anything about it - so the wind is the closest thing he gets these days to the feel of fingers on his face, his skin. It’s not just the wind. It’s why he likes running, pulling gs, breaking the sound barrier, why he like the beach and surfing.It’s the all-over tactile sensations that are adrenaline inducing and soothing all at once.Never mind that it’s not exactly the touch he wants, it’s the touch he can have, and for John that has to be enough.It’s bearable. When he thinks he can get away with it and when it’s safe to do so and no one he minds looking is looking, he turns into the breeze, closes his eyes, lets it lift his hair and ruffle through it like fingers on his scalp, lets himself sigh a little in pleasure.He’s allowed this.Everyone likes the wind in their hair and the sun in their face. It’s a basic human thing. No shame in that.

 

=

 

Teyla, it turns out, doesn’t like the wind in her hair at all, particularly when it blows it into her face.She doesn’t say anything but she keeps tossing her head and looks annoyed, the way she does when Rodney is bitching too much or saying something agonisingly sexist.He doesn’t remember when she started to do that less - whether its because Rodney complains more rarely now or if she’s inured to it.But the wind, that still pisses her off.It’s harshing her zen.Nothing’s happening over by the research station so John stands upwind of Teyla, waves his arms in exaggeration to create a mock wind break and tries to block the worst of it, catching her eye and grinning.He puts what he wants to say into the expression and hopes Teyla’s smart enough to pick it all up: he’ll protect his team no matter what, it says, tongue in cheek, even when the most that’s at stake is some tangles and the need for extended hair brush time at the end of the day.Teyla smiles back - _‘my hero’_ , it says, humouring him - and John bounces a little, so glad she gets it, gets _him_ , without him having to say it. 

 

=

 

John glances over to Ronon, up on the brow of the hill, keeping watch with - yes - a weather eye. Ronon’s relaxing a little, hip cocked, toying with his gun and watching over Rodney; John thinks maybe he’s bored but knows he’s still alert.Ronon’s habitually suspicious of the wind, which John suspects is a hangover from seven years betting his survival on the ability to differentiate the sound of wraith boots crushing twigs and the noise of tearing leaves in the wind.The difference between the chance of an hour or so to snatch sleep or another desperate chase across another empty planet.Ronon’s dreads are tied back from his face but they’re whipping around behind him as the gusts strengthen and John takes a moment to be grateful that they met, that he and Atlantis have made a difference to this one lost soul in a galaxy where they’ve done so much damage. 

It’s the wind. It’s making him sappy.

He daren’t indulge himself further in this kind of mood, so he turns away from Ronon, or rather more pertinently away from Rodney, and lets his head tilt back again to feel the draft in his hair.

 

=

 

Rodney scowls into the wind like it’s done him a personal injury as he winds cables around his hands and packs his rucksack with care.His cheeks are flushed pink - wind burn, thinks John, but still, a good look on him. 

“This was a waste of time” Rodney tells them, eyes on his task, addressing the air, before slinging his rucksack on his back and shoving his tablet into his vest.

“Aww don’t be like that, McKay” soothes John, “we’ve had a nice afternoon.”

“You have, maybe. _I’ve_ wasted valuable time I could have used catching up on, I don’t know, any one of the so very many critical projects waiting for me back on Atlantis, but no - instead I’ve climbed a pointless hill, had my ears frozen off by the blustery wind and achieved precisely nothing productive. And I hate the wind.”

“I like it” says John, smiling sweetly.

“Oh I can see that you like it”, snaps Rodney, looking him up and down and then stomping off without a further word.

“Problem, McKay?” he calls to his retreating back and trust McKay to dampen John’s buzz. Dammit, John was happy for a moment there. And what’s it to Rodney, what John likes? Then again, he thinks, those things always do rub Rodney the wrong way. It’s a little as if there’s something about John being happy that’s inherently suspicious to Rodney. And that, actually, does give him something to think about.Because Rodney’s not like that with the rest of the team. John doesn’t think it’s just that there’s some law of conservation of happiness in McKay’s universe of emotional physics, that a moment of peace for John is somehow less to go around for the rest of them - i.e. Rodney.It’s just him, just John.

Hmm.

John takes these things and ponders them as he tramps back to Jumper One with his team beside him, the wind whipping around him, the smell of the rain to come in the air, the tug of the air at his clothes, a thoughtful mood settling gently at the back of his mind.

 

=

 

So maybe, maybe, there’s a chance that John gets to have more than the wind in his hair. If he’s lucky. And very, very careful.

John knows it’s got to be him that does this. Man of action and all that. What he doesn’t know is the reason; whether it was the breeze, or the fact that no one tried to kill them today, or that for once Rodney’s single, or if John’s gotten too old to worry too much about all the other things that make this a terrible idea, or even if it’s that Rodney made a Winnie the Pooh reference and John found it endearing. Maybe it’s none of those things and it’s just time, one way or another, however this ends up going.

He showers and changes, takes his time, grabs some DVDs and some beer and ambles over to Rodney’s quarters, mellow as anything, nothing to see.Rings the chime, leans against the door frame as Rodney opens the door.He holds out the beer. It gets him a scowl, but McKay accepts the offering, tells him to come in, puts the six-pack down on the desk.

“What do you care what I like, McKay?” John asks, before Rodney can start on some tirade and John decides to change his mind about what he’s here for.Rodney’s hair is damp too, his cheeks still pink from the wind, or the shower, or maybe something else. If John’s really lucky.

“What?” asks Rodney, confused. John loves that look, seeing Rodney off kilter. He takes a couple of steps forward, lets himself smile. Rodney eyes widen, just a little. 

“Today.I was having a pretty fine time. Way to piss on my fireworks, McKay” says John, taking another step and getting up in Rodney’s space, letting himself loom.“I like the wind. It feels good. What’s it to you?” The eyes widen a bit more. Excellent.

“Piss on your…?” Rodney trails off.

John just raises an eyebrow, but inside he’s hoping, oh he’s hoping.

Rodney lets out a breath. “Oh for heaven’s sake. Fine.You get this _look_ , like you’re enjoying yourself. And I _get it_ when you’re flying a spaceship or we’ve found some weapon or other and you’re mentally cataloguing all the ways we can deploy it before you inevitably describe it as ‘cool’, I _get it_ when it’s those things, but with the wind it’s, it’s like its _all you need_.” He throws his hands in the air, sighs. “I’m sorry, it’s fine, it’s _fine_ that’s all _you_ need, some of us well… never mind. Some of us don’t get what we need. Happy now?” Rodney jerks his chin and looks utterly miserable, folding his arms over his chest and John thinks his heart is probably going to expand outside his chest at this rate. He feels ridiculously cheered.

“What do you need, Rodney?” he whispers, tracing a finger along one folded arm, and _that’s_ the really wide-eyed look he knows and loves.

“Um?” squeaks Rodney.

“Me,” continues John, “I need the wind in my hair once in a while. Feels nice. Not like anyone’s going to actually run their fingers through it for me, so you know, I take what I can get.” He shrugs.

Then he waits. 

Rodney has apparently stopped breathing, but he reaches up, swallowing nervously, and slowly drags his fingernails over behind John’s ear and into his hair. And oh. John closes his eyes.

“Really?” asks Rodney.

John opens his eyes, trying to let the mushy stuff he’s feeling show on his face. “Yeah.”

“Oh god” says Rodney quietly, bringing up his other hand to smooth John’s bangs out of his eyes and John grins - he _is_ lucky - wraps his arms around him and kisses him.

“Cool” says John, a little out of breath, when they pull apart.

Rodney rolls his eyes.”No need to get poetic about it”, he grouses. 

John smirks and leans in.“ _Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks…_ ” he quotes, mouthing against Rodney’s lips.

“…giving me ideas…” mutters Rodney, pulling them down onto the bed, and then John gets to have things that are even better than the wind in his hair, than pulling gs, than waves breaking on the shore of the ocean, adrenaline inducing and soothing all at once, not even a little bearable.

 

=

 

“Hey, we forgot the beer” says John, some time later.

“No need to fret about insignificant details” yawns Rodney.

“You were jealous of _weather,_ McKay.”

“Well, no need anymore” Rodney says jovially,before - because Rodney - his face falls and he props himself up on an elbow to stare down at John wide eyed. “There’s no need, right?” he asks.

“There was never any need, you idiot” sighs John, brushing his fingers through Rodney’s hair and pulling him back down to kiss a smile back onto his face, warm with gratitude for this, for the opportunities afforded by a rare quiet mission in Pegasus, and for a windy day.

 

===

 


End file.
